His suggestion to split the low risk banking business from the higher risk investing/speculating business is not new at all — it is precisely the conclusion reached and acted upon by Congress in 1933 when Glass Steagall was enacted. The universal banks were split into two — insured banks that had the exclusive monopoly of taking other people’s money (deposits) and were restricted by law to making plain vanilla low risk/low return loans, and investment banks that were privately held partnerships left to gamble their own capital any way they wished (and guess what, when it was their own capital the gambles were a lot more conservative. Starting in the 1980s and culminating in 1999 when Congress enacted Gramm Leach Bliley Act (which was necessary to allow the merger of Travelers and Citibank to form Citigroup) repealing Glass Steagall, the banks were allowed to play like investment banks and the investment banks became public and also played like banks. Less than a decade after Congress undid the complex balancing that had worked relatively well for 60 years we find ourselves in exactly the same position we were in 1933– and Mr Taleb’s suggestion brings us full circle again.